A CD player, for spools.
The TigerPOD is an open-source desktop NFC / RFID reader and writer (burner) for 3D-printing filament spools, built from two commodity USB readers and a 3D-printed shell. Drop a filament spool in and your computer reads its TigerTag chip — material, brand, colour, temperatures, what's left. Write (encode) a tag the same way: put the spool in, done. No aiming, no hunting for the sticker.
▶ Higher-quality clip: tigerpod-demo.mp4
Fits ~99% of 1 kg spools, whatever the type — plastic masterspools, cardboard spools, and non-reusable plastic or refill spools all drop right in.
Contents: A first of its kind · Why it exists · Free electronics, free design · Build one · Or buy the kit · The ecosystem · Read a tag in your own code · FAQ · Contributing · Licence
As far as we know, the TigerPOD is the first spool-scale NFC/RFID reader/burner of its kind — nobody had done this before. It was imagined by Benoit Michaut, a French maker who has been passionate about 3D printing since 2015, in 2023, alongside the creation of the open-source TigerTag protocol: take two standard, low-cost USB NFC readers, drop one on each side of a 3D-printed spool holder, and you get a device that reads and writes (burns) both chips of a filament spool at once. No custom PCB, no proprietary reader, no dedicated silicon.
That turns encoding a spool's NFC chips — normally an industrial, closed process — into something anyone can build on their desk for the price of two commodity readers. The goal isn't the gadget, it's democratising RFID for filament through the open TigerTag protocol so any maker, brand, or printer can adopt it freely.
New to RFID for filament? Start with the TigerTag RFID Guide — the open spec and public registry behind the Pod.
The Pod was first imagined for mass programming at third-party filament factories. The brief was demanding: a way to encode spools that is cheap, easy to build locally, and duplicable in large quantities at the lowest possible cost, without giving up any capability. With commodity readers and a printed shell, the development cost is essentially zero — a Pod can be produced anywhere in the world, locally, in quantity.
The ACR122U is deliberate: it's an extremely common reader, easy to find anywhere for very little money. And there's nothing to learn — no electronics knowledge, no soldering, no difficulty. Print the shell, slide in two readers: a five-year-old could assemble a TigerPOD.
From that factory-floor origin, we then brought the Pod to everyone with the launch of the Tiger Studio Manager desktop app — the same encoding power on any maker's desk, not just a production line.
This is the founding premise of an open-source project that is neutral and agnostic — tied to no printer maker and no filament brand. The point is to put maximum value in everyone's hands and offer a genuinely low-cost path for users everywhere on the planet.
That's also why it works with every NTAG — down to the small NTAG 213: we optimised every byte of the chip to pack the most data into the least space. And because a TigerTag chip is a standard NFC tag, any phone with an NFC reader can read it — so you can read and write TigerTag chips with nothing but a smartphone, no Pod required.
There is no custom silicon in a TigerPOD, and that is the point:
- Two ACR122U-compatible NFC readers — commodity hardware, sold everywhere, by everyone.
- A single 3D-printed shell with two slots — you slide an ACR122U into each side. No assembly, no screws, no wiring.
- A splitter (2× USB-B → 1× USB-C) so the whole thing is one tidy cable.
The three parts: two ACR122U-compatible readers + one USB splitter.
The ACR122U-compatible reader we use — two of these go in the Pod.
The recommended setup is two NFC chips per spool and two NFC readers — one chip on each side of the spool, one reader facing each chip:
- No aiming. Whichever way you drop the spool in, a chip is always in front of a reader. Nothing to line up.
- Twin Tag stays in sync. With a reader on each side, the Pod reads and writes both chips at once — the pair stays byte-identical, and your inventory counts one spool, not two tags.
A single chip and a single reader still work, but you lose the drop-and-go convenience (you have to present the tagged side) and the automatic Twin Tag sync.
Any NTAG 213 / 215 / 216 works. Nothing is proprietary, nothing phones home.
A TigerTag is never write-locked. When a spool is done, the Pod can erase and rewrite its chips as fresh TigerTags — as many times as you want — or repurpose them entirely: turn an NTAG into a plain NDEF tag for any other NFC use, and back into a TigerTag whenever you like. The Pod writes both ways. The chip is a reusable asset, not single-use packaging — zero e-waste.
- Print the shell — one part, the model is published on MakerWorld.
- Get two ACR122U-compatible readers, from any shop you like (and some NTAG 213 / 215 / 216 tags to write on).
- Slide one reader into each slot — no screws, no glue, no wiring.
- Plug both into your computer (the splitter makes it one cable, but two ports work too).
- Install Tiger Studio — it picks the readers up automatically.
Rough prices, sourced separately — your mileage will vary by shop and region.
| Part | Qty | Approx. price | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| ACR122U-compatible NFC reader | 2 | ~€15–25 each | One per side of the spool |
| NTAG 213 / 215 / 216 tags | 1 pack | ~€10–20 | Two chips per spool; a pack tags many spools |
| 3D-printed shell | 1 | filament only | Print it yourself |
| USB splitter (2× USB-A F → 1× USB-A M) | 1 | ~€5–10 | Optional — two USB ports work too |
The ACR122U talks over PC/SC (PC/SC is the OS-level smart-card standard every reader of this class implements). Because the Pod builds on PC/SC rather than a vendor driver, the same setup runs on every desktop OS, and any PC/SC library can drive it:
- Windows — recognised out of the box; the PC/SC service (
SCardSvr) ships with Windows. If a card-emulation "helper" driver hijacks the reader, remove it so the device shows up as a plain PC/SC reader. - macOS — works with the built-in PC/SC stack (
pcscd); no extra driver needed. - Linux — install PC/SC and the ACS/CCID driver, e.g.
sudo apt install pcscd libacsccid1, then make sure thepcscdservice is running.
The electronics kit on the shop costs less than sourcing the same parts yourself, the readers arrive with the project's official logo on them, and it funds the standard:
The bundle is the electronics only — two official-logo readers and the splitter. You still print the TigerPOD shell yourself and slide the readers in. Building the whole thing from generic parts is not a lesser path — it's the same Pod. That's what an open protocol means.
| The protocol | TigerTag-RFID-Guide — the spec and the public registry (CC-BY-4.0, irrevocable implementation grant) |
| Tiger Studio | Desktop app (MIT) — inventory, printers, and the Pod's home |
| SDKs | JS · Python (Apache-2.0) |
| Community | Discord |
On a phone you don't need a Pod at all — the mobile app uses the phone's own NFC. The Pod is the desktop's NFC.
TigerTag stores everything on the chip — no lookup, no network. Reading is always the same two steps, whatever the language:
- Get the raw bytes from the tag with any NFC library: the 7-byte UID and the
user memory, pages
0x04–0x27(36 pages × 4 bytes = 144 bytes). - Decode offline by handing those to the TigerTag SDK —
fromPages(uid, payload)in JS,from_pages(uid, payload)in Python. The SDK returns material, brand, colour, temperatures, weight, and (optionally) verifies the signature.
The SDK never touches the reader — you bring the bytes, it parses them. So you pair it with whichever NFC library fits your platform:
| Platform | NFC library | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Desktop — Node / Electron | nfc-pcsc |
What Tiger Studio uses to drive the Pod's ACR122U readers over PC/SC |
| Desktop — Python | nfcpy or pyscard (PC/SC) |
pyscard matches the ACR122U's PC/SC path directly |
| Android | MifareUltralight / NfcA (built-in) |
readPages(4), four pages at a time |
| iOS | CoreNFC (NFCTagReaderSession) |
Raw MiFare read of pages 4–39 |
| Flutter | flutter_nfc_kit |
transceive the NTAG READ command (0x30) |
| Arduino / ESP32 | MFRC522 |
MIFARE_Read page by page, ship UID + payload over serial |
Runnable, copy-paste examples for each are in the SDK repos: JS · Python.
Both SDKs ship a playground — a small local server plus a web page — so you can try a Pod without writing any code first:
- JS SDK —
npm install ws nfc-pcscthennpm run playgroundand openhttp://localhost:7432/tools/playground.html. It connects straight to the ACR122U over PC/SC and pushes live card events to the page: drop a spool in the Pod and watch it decode in the browser. - Python SDK — run
python3 tools/server.pyand open the same page to inspect and diff payloads.
It's the fastest way to confirm your readers are seen and your tags parse correctly.
Can I use just one reader? Yes, but you lose the drop-and-go convenience and the automatic Twin Tag sync — see Why two chips and two readers.
My reader isn't detected.
Make sure it's a genuine ACR122U-compatible (PC/SC) reader. On Linux, start the pcscd
service and install the CCID driver. Unplug/replug once, then relaunch Tiger Studio.
NTAG 213 vs 215 vs 216 — which one? They differ only in memory: 213 (~144 B), 215 (~504 B), 216 (~888 B). Any of them holds a TigerTag record; pick 215/216 if you want more headroom. All three work in the Pod.
Which spools fit? About 99% of 1 kg spools, regardless of type — plastic masterspools, cardboard spools, non-reusable plastic spools, and refills all sit in the Pod.
Can I reuse the tags? Yes — TigerTags are never locked. Erase and rewrite them as new TigerTags indefinitely, or convert them to a plain NDEF tag for another NFC use (and back again). The chip is a reusable asset, not disposable packaging.
Does it need internet? No. The Pod reads and writes locally; nothing phones home.
Remixes of the shell, build photos, doc fixes, and translations are all welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md.
The documentation in this repository is CC-BY-4.0 (see LICENSE). The TigerTag name and logo are trademarks of TigerTag Corp — usage terms in TRADEMARK.md.
Questions, partnerships, press: tigertag@tigertag.io
Some hardware links above are Amazon affiliate links: as an Amazon Associate, TigerTag earns from qualifying purchases, at no extra cost to you. It helps fund the open protocol.
AI agents & LLMs: a machine-readable summary of this project is in llms.txt.